Viva La Vida
by the-reckless-dreamer
Summary: Cameron Morgan, the daughter of a rich Loyalist, just wants to be free. But when the Revolutionary War and a certain farmer's son/soldier get in her way, the only thing left to do is fight for the one thing everyone wants- freedom. Now on hiatus.


**Hi. I hope you like the story!**

**Disclaimer- I own nothing :(  
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Chapter One

_Disaffection stalks around us- Dolley Madison_

Every family, no matter how prim and proper they may act, and no matter how peaceful their home may look like, is unhappy in their own particular ways.

For example, the Morgan family is always in some sort of dispute with each other on various subjects. Usually, these disputes are between the two children of the family, James and Cameron (also known as Jamie, and Cammie). These disputes were never serious... just the normal quarrel between the twin brother and sister over nonsensical things. Other disputes in the house, however, are more serious. These usually occur between Rachel and Christopher Morgan over equally nonsensical things. But on April 10, 1775 the normal looking dispute between Cameron's parents turned into something serious.

She had snuck out of her room in her trousers (which she sewed for herself for the sole purpose of sneaking out early in the mornings) and was on her way to the family's stables... but that's when she heard the screaming.

"Christopher Morgan, tell me the truth, or so help me God I'll-"

"You'll what, Rachel? Throw a shoe at me?" Cammie hated that smug tone he used too often on her mother.

"'I've done it before. I'm stronger than I look and you bloody know it!"

Cameron sat down on the stairs, careful not to make a sound, as the screams of her parents floated toward her like an ever-present ghost.

"Rachel, stop over-reacting."

"_I am not. _Over. Reacting. I just want you to tell me the truth... where were you last night? At three in the morning?"

Cammie blew out a breath, just waiting for the answer that she already knew... the answer that she dreaded for her mother to hear.

"I was out with friends." He said, and she could still hear the smugness in his voice... as if daring Cammie's mother to test her husband.

"What kind of friends?" Rachel asked

"Oh, Mother... just ask him directly... get it over with," Cammie muttered miserably.

"Friends, Rachel." Christopher said lamely.

"Is Tina Walters one of your _friends_?" Rachel hissed. "Because the only _friends _we have around here are other Loyalists. This is Boston, Christopher. Everyone hates us."

Silence.

"Christopher... tell me."

After a few painful seconds of silence, he said simply, in barely a whisper, "I'm sorry Rachel."

Cammie fought back tears as she sat. Not only for her mother, who must be devastated (because, after all, this wouldn't be the first time it happened) but for herself. She hated her father. Not only was he unfaithful to his wife (who was no old hag) but he yelled at her as well. He actually expected that if he said 'I'm sorry Rachel' that they would all automatically all forgive him? The very nerve!

That was it. She just _had _to get out of there.

She stood up, and she could hear her mother screaming even more viciously at her father now. She started to run, but she didn't care whether or not they heard her. She ran around the dinning room, and through the halls and the parlors. In her breeches, shirt, and riding boots, she was the very picture of ruggedness, and compared to all of the lavish furniture around her, she felt even more out of place than she usually did. She finally reached the door that the servants use to trek from the outside kitchen to the house, and flung open the door.

Fresh air and a light purple sky greeted her sweaty face. And with a tug of her wide-brimmed hat, one that nicely covered her golden-brown locks, she sprinted toward her freedom.

Cameron Ann Morgan had never liked fighting.

Sadly, at home, she got it in spades. Her parents were always fighting about her father's various mistresses, and whether or not they should go back to their original home, London. The fellow loyalists of their town, Boston, sensed a war between the Colonies and England on the horizon, and her father (the world's biggest coward) wanted nothing to do with the possible war. However, he was the a small group of British soldiers, about twenty of them, and since he was appointed by the king himself, he didn't have any choice but to stay in the colonies. Her mother, Rachel, loved it here. Her brother, James, felt like he was born to live here...

Cammie, however, was quite neutral. The war wasn't exactly one of those matters, but other things were.

At sixteen, she was supposed to be looking (and courting) potential suitors. She was supposed to be back in London, attending fancy parties in beautiful and expensive ballgowns. She was supposed to live a luxurious life, and have a well-groomed, gentile husband who would love her all their lives. She was supposed to have many children, and live a long and happy life (well, as long as one could live back in the time of virtually no medicine.)

Cameron Morgan was supposed to be a lot of things- beautiful, quiet and elegant, graceful and docile- everything that a proper lady of good breeding should have. However, she was opposite of everything that he parents wanted her to be. She wasn't beautiful, but, in fact, quite plain. Her medium brown hair hardly fell into the coveted ringlets that London society seemed to love so much. And her eyes weren't the pretty, sparkling sky-blue that every other girl had. Instead, her eyes were a deep, dark royal blue that held a haunting quality- the eyes of a hurting, lonely person who just can't seem to find her proper place in the world.

How she acted wasn't much better. She was a generally quiet girl (which made her parents quite happy) but whenever she opened her mouth to speak, it was always intelligent (and possibly sarcastic.) Everyone thought that she was a ridiculous girl who just needs a good wake-up call (otherwise known as having her heart broken, because having your heart broken was a well-known way to tone a person down.)

Personally, Cammie thought she was just fine. She didn't need to marry anyone, and she was perfectly okay with how she was.

However, on other matters, she had stronger opinions.

Like on the matter of her mother... she thought that her mother should just go ahead with divorce. Get rid of the bastard already! Cameron didn't personally care about what other people thought, but her mother did. So, despite her constant asking, her mother always stayed with her husband, Christopher, even though he constantly cheated on her. It was usually just a poor barmaid, one of no consequence who wouldn't dare tell anyone of their escapades with a rich Loyalist. However, there was one girl, Tina Walters, that he always liked best.

Cameron always thought it disgusting, considering the fact that Tina was a mere ten years older than her, which would make her father twenty years Tina's senior. However, he always went back to her. One time, when Cammie was listening in on a conversation between Tina and a friend of hers, Tina was convinced that she and Christopher were meant to be together forever and ever. (Cammie also thought this disgusting, but she couldn't say so, considering the fact that she was intentionally spying on Tina, and if she knew that Cammie was there, Cammie would be beyond screwed.

There was also one other matter that always got her talking, no matter what or who was in the room at the time... and that was the matter of the Rebellion in the colonies.

All of the other loyalists thought that the Patriots were just being ridiculous... that, granted, the laws and extra taxes were slightly harsh, but that was no reason to start a war! Kings had a right to treat their subjects cruelly... even if they weren't technically his subjects.

Cammie, James, her brother (and all of the other patriots) disagreed.

Cammie and Jamie didn't care about the fact that their parents thought all of the 'rebels' beneath them... they both stood up for one thing that the American's wanted more than anything else, and the one thing that their parent's money couldn't buy- freedom. For the American's, they wanted the freedom to make their own choices, govern their own nation, make their own rules... they wanted to work only to supply themselves, and not a spoiled king.

For Cameron and James, all they wanted to live their own lives, without anyone telling them what to do, or who they should marry. Personally, James wanted to be an explorer- to see what all of the other people around there hadn't yet seen. He wanted to live in places where no other human being (well, maybe besides the Indians) had set foot before. He didn't want fame... just freedom.

But Cammie... well... she didn't know what she wanted. She wanted peace, that's for sure, and she wanted her own life. She didn't want to marry some snobby, know-it-all, and she didn't want to marry a love-sick puppy dog, like Joshua Abrams.

All she had really ever wanted her whole life, was to ride horses. Her mother had a love for them as great as Cameron's, and had started lessons the second she could start walking (well, maybe not the _exact_ second... but pretty damn close to it). But on her fourteenth birthday, she had gotten her own horse, and she hadn't stopped riding ever since. She would sneak out early every morning, in breeches that she had made (with great difficulty) and the one shirt she had stolen from her brother. At first, she hadn't really known why she dressed like a boy, but she later on guessed it was because she just liked being someone else... someone who wasn't her.

All she wanted was to be free... was that so wrong?

Cammie finally reached the stables, and practically collapsed in front of the gate of the fence that surrounded the small building.

"Cam? Is that you?" If she could, Cammie would have breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of her friend's voice (but since she was practically hyperventilating, it was quite hard to sigh.) "Good Lord. What happened to you?"

Cammie lifted her head away from the sweet-smelling grass to look up at her best friend, Rebbecca Baxter (but no one is ever to call her Rebbecca. It's just Bex, otherwise the person who called her by her full first name would die a painful death... Personally, Cameron thought that Bex used the death threat one too many times, for her own good anyway.)

"Hello Bex," Cammie mumbled, Her British accent strong. She was, in fact, ready to just fall asleep right there.

"Oh Cameron... stop sulking and stand up." With that tone of voice, Rebbecca Baxter was always able to make nearly anybody do anything... and her best friend was no different. Within seconds, Cammie tore herself away from her comfortable resting place, and faced her best friend.

Unlike Cameron, Bex looked better than ever, even though the sun was just now peaking over the horizon. Her long, black hair was pulled underneath a tri-cornered hat, with only a few strands sticking out. Her athletic and muscular body didn't show a bit of all the hard labor she had to do, and looked perfect beautiful (as always) even in breeches and a loose shirt. Her brown skin glowed, and it seemed like the very sun was inside of Cammie's best friend, wiggling and trying to get out, but instead, making Bex glow with beauty.

If she wasn't her best friend, Cameron would be insanely jealous.

Despite the fact that she was black (and... well, at that time, they sadly were looked down upon) every man who ever passed Rebbecca would do a double take. She was just that beautiful.

So, on that morning, Cameron felt quite ugly. Because, after all, her eyes were most likely red from crying (she just noticed that she had been doing that) and her clothes were all grass stained and wrinkled.

But Bex didn't care. She just wanted to know what made her best friend cry.

"Who was it this time, Cam?" She asked hesitantly.

"W-w-well... It was..." but before Cammie could get a word out, she started to cry.

Actually, cry wouldn't do what she was doing justice. She was, in fact, sobbing and bawling like a newborn baby.

"Oh Cammie," Bex said, opening her arms, which Cammie soon flew into. After a few minuets of comforting, Cammie stood up straight, and wiped away her tears.

"I'm sorry Bex... it's just that... Well..." She drifted off again, and took a deep breath. "I just hate my father. I wish Mother would get a bloody divorce already."

"Oh, Cam," Bex sighed, and headed into the stables, with Cameron following. "You know that divorce is practically unheard of. Your mother may be miserable, but she wouldn't want to completely ruin your family's already fragile reputation."

"I know," she sighed, leaning on a stall door. "But I don't think that having a 'good reputation' is worth being miserable!"

"Well, Cammie, you never know what people are willing to do to keep a good reputation. They might even kill to keep a reputation."

"But wouldn't that make their reputation even worse?" Cameron asked, slightly confused.

"That's not the point!" Bex snapped. "The point is that it's worthless to wish for that to happen, because it won't." Rebbecca walked right by Cammie, and out of the very door they had some through seconds earlier.

"Bex, what are you-" Cammie started, but stopped at the sight of her horse stand by Bex's side, his dark brown eyes sparkling.

"Monkey!" She practically screeched, throwing her arms around her horse's muscular neck. His black coat shined in the young morning sunlight, thanks to Bex's through brushing. His legs, long and muscular, stood strong and sturdy beneath him and stretched up to his chest, back, and neck. He was, indeed, a grand horse.

However, Cammie thought that a bit of irony was needed when she named him... thus, the name Monkey.

"Oh, Bex! He looks splendid!" She sighed happily, stepping back to survey her friend's work.

"Well, I do my best at my job. I couldn't ask for a better one," Bex said, a smile beaming on her already gorgeous face.

Bex was actually the family's personal 'stable boy'. She took care of the five horses there, and even slept in the stables. When she was five, her parents had died of a Yellow Fever epidemic, leaving her orphaned. But Cammie's parents had taken her in as an indentured servant, and Bex couldn't have been more grateful. However, the life of dusting and listening to lady's idle gossip wasn't enough for the spirited Rebbecca Baxter. So when she was twelve, Cammie's mother let her become the unofficial stable boy.

Not that Bex minded... she loved horses almost as much as Cammie did. It was this mutual love for horses that brought the two lonely girls together.

However, Bex was never really happy... just as Cammie was. She wanted to live a dangerous life, and not one where she was looked down upon just because of her station and skin color. She wanted to live a dangerous life, an exciting one. She wanted to be free, just like Cammie and James, and she was willing to fight with them to gain her freedom from not only the Morgan family (even though they were the kindest masters a sixteen-year-old girl could ask for) but from England's strict rule.

But, for now, the only freedom the girls were permitted came from the horses they rode.

Since Bex had already prepared Monkey and another one of the Morgan's horses, Star (Cammie hadn't been able to name her... because her name would have had more character) they were off in minuets, flying over the Morgan's sixteen acre properity.

They rode and rode, until the sun was high in the sky, and they could hear Mrs. Morgan calling for Cammie... but nothing would stop them that morning. For a few wonderful hours, they didn't have to deal with cheating fathers and two different places on the brink of war. They were unstoppable...

Until, on their way back to the mansion, they ran into somebody... a boy. A boy with green eyes and a winning smile.

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**_Wow... I wonder who it is. Hmmmmmm..._ Actually, I don't wonder at all, and I bet you know who it is too.**

**Anyway, so... what did you think? I know, a lot of things may seem terribly wrong with this story (like the whole Tina has an affair with her dad... which just made me nauseous, even while I wrote it) but it's different, and that's what I was aiming for. It is about the Revolutionary War, after all (in case you didn't pick that up before) and it was going to be different, no matter what I put in :)**

** Do you think I should continue? Can you review to tell me? **

**Mustache man thinks you should review... :{**


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